By Mansfield Duopu,Minneapolis,Minnesota

Bush Chicken, an online Liberian news magazine reporter Somahn Dahn’s article “Grimes and the 911 Call” was an amateurish attempt at describing the mob action by men wearing Black suits during the recent Organization of Liberians in Minnesota(OLM) Board debate, who were trying desperately to balance their privacy with the public space.

I was struck to have heard from someone during the melee that the College was not a public space and as such they were covered by some constitutional provisions. If that is your only defense, I will say, get a life!

 I can remember like other people that there were others who were taking pictures for different reasons. I know there were people in that audience whose pictures would appear on particular websites for reasons one can only speculate. That does not give anyone, including myself immunity in the public arena from the invention of the Iraq scientist, Alhazen in 1011, called camera.

You see my friend, whenever you venture in the public; you lose some of your treasured privacy. I know that there are people who are not photogenic and they will rather not have their pictures taken, but the fact remains there are no guarantees in the public space.

To come back to the issue, the single complaint I heard that night was that Grimes had put some people’s pictures on the internet in ways they felt incensed, but I will tell folks that’s some of the draw-backs of the internet. I know of some websites that are friendly to these very people and they think it is fair game when others are painted in similar light. If you feel offended by Grimes postings (I make no excuses for his actions, rightly or wrongly) there are civil procedures some of you learned from law school. Why don’t you pursue that, but make small of yourself?

I admired James Qualah (sorry if I did not spell your last name correctly) and the rest of the organizers who spoke in unison against this act of mobocracy. Like Qualah rightly stated, Grimes and others who were accredited had legitimate jobs to perform. If you don’t like it, go jump the cliff. I am sure there were others like myself who do not like what some websites write or the color of the journalism they practice, but hey, what can we do?

The best we can do is to render them irrelevant by exposing their follies and their narrow gambits. This mob action by these individuals is just the tip of the iceberg. The Elections Commission must impose some sanctions on such a disgraceful and reprehensible behavior by the MEN-IN -BLACK, to uphold the integrity of the debates and the elections.

We have intelligence reports that these individuals are planning to introduce strong-arm tactics subterfuge, and intimidation during the day of election want to publicly employ other camps to be prepared to quell this diabolical plan by these fiends. I end by giving a wise counsel. The next time you don’t want your picture taken in the public space, you can use what women in extremist cultures use to cover their entire bodies, THE BOLKA.The argument of a Federal Data Practices Act holds no water.

Mansfield Duopu is a former President of the University of Liberia Students Union(ULSU) and currently a Graduate Student and President of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota’s Prestigious Humphrey School of Public Affairs